13 Darkest Doctor Who Endings Ever

Truthfully, half of this list could have been Peter Capaldi episodes. During his years, the show strayed into darker territory than ever before, and his big finale (not including the coda that is Twice Upon A Time) is no exception.

World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls focus on a core cast of five characters: Twelve, Bill, Nardole, The Saxon Master, and Missy. By the end of part two, all five of them are dead. Twelve is gunned down by Cybermen while buying a small group of survivors a few years of life; Bill is shot through the heart, converted into a Cyberman, and turns into a ghost puddle; Nardole is trapped in a hopeless last stand and is implied to have eventually perished; and Missy and the Master kill each other. Crushingly, the Doctor never finds out that Missy has changed her ways.

This is a story of sacrifice, without hope, witness, or reward. It’s the most quintessential statement of what the Doctor is, and his speech to Missy and the Master, while bleak as just about anything, summarises the bread and butter of this character better than perhaps any other moment.

This is one of those episodes that would actually work as a permanent finale to the show, but it’s probably for the best that this wasn’t the case, because what a traumatic ending.